from Hacker News

Are rotary mixers better?

by daledavies on 10/27/24, 6:25 AM with 66 comments

  • by jonesjohnson on 10/27/24, 8:25 AM

    The title is a bit misleading IMHO. It's more like analog vs digital. After all, from an electrical point of view they're usually just potentiometers and you can build them either as rotary or as linear potentiometers, but it's just a wiper on a resistive conductive track... (of course there are exceptions that work differently and use hall effect or optical sensors).

    The article only talks about the actual circuit that is behind that potentiometer.

    Having built some MIDI controllers myself in the past, I noticed that rotary potentiometers allow you to better "decouple" arm/shoulder movements from hand/finger movements. I.e. when you're standing and and holding that knob, It's easier to make precise adjustments when there's a rotary knob you can "hold on to" and slowly twist your fingers, whereas with a linear potentiometer I usually have to keep a finger on the surface next to the knob to "compensate" for involuntary movements coming from my body and arm...

  • by intsunny on 10/27/24, 11:13 AM

    How an entire article about rotary mixers fails to mention Rane or their legendary MP2016 mixer is wild.

    It became one of the most commonly available rotary mixers, was the house mixer for many NYC clubs, and one of the mixers commonly found on tech riders of DJs who were the last to transition to CDJs.

    Random bit of trivia: if you see old school photos or videos of rotary mixers in American clubs, sometimes it wasn't actually the Rane MP2016, but the Phazon SDX 3700: https://www.integralsound.com/sdx-3700-mixer It was the house mixer for Tunnel/Limelight.

  • by dspig on 10/27/24, 8:07 AM

    Any headline with a question... Of course it depends on what you want to do and what you are used to.

    Technically, regardless of the rest of the product design there are high quality potentiometers available both as linear faders or rotary knobs. I guess dirt is more likely to get into a linear fader and make it scratchy - especially in a club environment.

  • by letier on 10/27/24, 8:13 AM

    I actually have a Taula 2 and a Xone 92 at home. I prefer the Taula 2, due to the simplicity and the fact that it has an isolator. The Xone 92 has a four band IQ and a filter, which I like a lot, but I have the impression that all the bells and whistles take a toll on the quality. At least in a home listening setup.

    Anyways, it’s not the knobs that make the sound…

  • by Animats on 10/27/24, 7:53 AM

    What, no discussion of knob size, knurl, and operating torque?

    At this point it's mostly a user interface problem.

  • by i_am_proteus on 10/27/24, 11:15 AM

    Seems like ad copy for the recently-released Alpha Theta Euphonia.

  • by blablablerg on 10/27/24, 8:10 AM

    You can't do (or it is much more involved) to do cuts with rotary knobs. So they serve only the DJ who does slow mixes, while with faders you can do both.

  • by NikkiA on 10/28/24, 1:50 AM

    Linear (travel, not resistance) pots are easier to clean, so no.

  • by DidYaWipe on 10/27/24, 8:39 AM

    Not in a computer UI.

    It's depressing that audio software still widely subjects users to this skeuomorphic failure, trying to do everything with on-screen "knobs." Ugh.

  • by jeffreygoesto on 10/27/24, 8:19 AM

    Oh. I first thought it would be about blenders and thought "what other principles would be there?"